Long Buckby teenager wins £3,000 yearly bursary to help with studies

A Daventry village student has won a bursary to help with her studies at the University of Cambridge.

Natalie Chapman, from Long Buckby, is one of 13 star students from the Midlands to have been awarded the £3,000 a year bursary by exam board OCR to support their education at the world-famous university.

The students all studied A Levels at schools and colleges in the West Midlands, including Birmingham, Coventry, Rugby, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, Nuneaton, Telford and Oswestry, and received their bursary at OCR's Coventry offices last week.

“I am very grateful to OCR for the financial support it has offered me at a time of rising tuition fees and a growing burden of debt for students," said 18-year-old Natalie, who will read Classics at Clare College.

"I am so happy and excited to attend Cambridge University; hopefully this bursary will provide opportunity and allow me to make the most of my time there.”

Natalie's former head of sixth form at Rugby High School, Mireille Everton, said: "Natalie has proved a dedicated classicist within her time at school and has ensured that she made the most of any opportunities available to support her learning: for example attending study days at Cambridge University and joining the Classics department four-day trip to the Bay of Naples.

"Natalie has managed a workload of four A-Levels to enable her to continue studying art. Even within this, she showed her love of the classical world with a dissertation on Ovid’s influence and examining the Renaissance period.”

Now in its fourteenth year, the OCR bursary was set up to help students in the West Midlands to make the most of their studies at the University of Cambridge.

Congratulating the students on their achievements, Simon Lebus, chair of OCR and chief executive of its parent organisation Cambridge Assessment, said: “This year’s applicants were such an incredibly talented group of students that we gave a higher number of awards than in many previous years.

"All 13 are not only high achievers academically but go way beyond the curriculum to extend their studies – one even won the competition to design the back of the new £1 coin.

"Others have won Gold in the Senior Mathematics Challenge, written a novel and an essay for publication.

"All have also shown themselves to be good citizens through mentoring younger students and charity work locally and overseas.

"Many have overcome adversity and I hope the OCR bursary will go towards helping any financial pressures that could get in the way of them making the most of their study and lives at Cambridge. We wish them great success at Cambridge and beyond."